Monday, October 24, 2016

The Arizona native said he is depicted as a close-minded, hateful man in the media when the opposite is true.

Schilling said an example of how he is treated in the media is his recent appearance on CNN with Jake Tapper.

“I asked him as a person of the Jewish faith, why people, who practice that faith would be supporters of the Democratic Party — given their anti-Israel, anti-Jewish stance,” he said. “After that — I was called an anti-Semite — and I am thinking to myself: ‘What a ...

This has been always been my view. Are there really many organizations which think otherwise?

Joe Maddon had the following to say when asked yesterday about the Cubs front office:

“The thing that impresses me the most is their willingness, or ability, to balance the numbers and the person. It’s not just a numeric exercise; it’s not just a sabermetric exercise. It’s also about the guy… I think sometimes in the game today it gets to the point where it’s just about a number, acquiring ...

4. Teams need to capitalize on their window to win. We have seen clubs that believe their time is now act very aggressively in recent years — think the Cubs the past two years (Joe Maddon, Jon Lester, Jason Heyward, John Lackey, Ben Zobrist, Aroldis Chapman), the Mets at the past two trade deadlines (Yoenis Cespedes, Jay Bruce) and even the small-market Indians at the last deadline (Andrew Miller).

No team wants to squander a championship core. The Astros now stand out in this way. They have ...

It’s OK to say it out loud now, Chicago. The Cubs are National League champions. The Cubs are in the World Series for the first time since 1945.

Let those words sink in for a few days before the games — and all the trepidation and anxiety they will bring — begin Tuesday. For now, it’s time for Cubs fans to raise a glass to the millions who never got to say that simple sentence:

This is Year 22 of the wild-card era. Just twice in the previous 21 seasons has a team like the Cubs, which led the major leagues outright in victories, gone on to win the World Series. The only two to win it all: the 1998 and 2009 Yankees. (No National League team has done it in 30 years, since the 1986 Mets.).....How different might everything have been—because of one pitch or one crazy moment that no one has witnessed before or since? We can’t answer those questions, of course. But go back ...

Kershaw tends to pitch better on regular rest. In his career, he has a 2.31 earned-run average in the regular season on four days’ rest. His ERA rises to 2.61 when he receives five days off.

But these are unique circumstances. His output has been extraordinary these past two weeks. He started Game 1 of the division series against Washington on Oct. 7, and pitched on three days of rest in Game 4. He helped the team avoid ...

After the Red Sox, I’m a Cubs fan. Unlike a true Cubs fan, I’m not feeling the angst that I felt with the Red Sox. The tips I can give are: keep the faith, keep a paper bag handy, and have something you can destroy in the backyard, just in case.

“It’s within our reach right now,’’ Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “We’re not going to run away from anything.’‘

Paul Dolan just wanted to get acquainted with the guy who lifted the Indians to a World Series berth.

“I’m spending this time trying to find him,” the team owner said. “I’ve never met him.”

The “him” is Ryan Merritt, and for eternity, his moniker will satisfy trivia questions and trigger fond memories for those in Cleveland. For the Blue Jays, who barely recognized his name before his astonishing performance in Game 5 of the ALCS, Merritt will be hard to forget.

Transactions:
*Drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the fifth round of the 1984 draft, out of high school in Malibu, California.
*Released by Dodgers May 1, 1987 following arrest for grand theft auto
*Pitched in California Penal League 1988 (no statistics kept)
*Signed by Indians as a free agent, February 9, 1989

Upon being named columnist, Sharp wrote: “A columnist’s role isn’t to blindly lead cheers. Nor is it a blank check to slam individuals solely because you have been given a club. But there is a responsibility to raise questions and express doubts. There should be a commitment to deflate the smug and arrogant because, after all, this is only sports—a useful diversion and an increasingly influential business, but hardly irreplaceable in our everyday lives.

The Royals had the second-biggest leap in last year’s Ultimate Standings, and now, after winning the World Series last fall, they climb into the top 10 as the highest-ranked MLB team. Key injuries to Mike Moustakas and Lorenzo Cain and Alex Gordon’s bad year wrecked the team’s playoff hopes, but Kansas City remained baseball-crazy, with the highest local TV ratings in the sport….

Sunday baseball may be legalized in New York state before the opening of the 1917 season. A number of state senators and congressmen from the metropolitan district will champion this cause at the next meeting of the legislature.

It was at the suggestion of certain prominent politicians that the patronage of the Brooklyn National league club was sounded on the matter last summer. The attitude of Brooklyn, it is believed, will prove beyond a doubt to the ...

“We know the media and fans are going to be biased about winning tonight’s game,” Kasten said. “That is not a productive guiding vision for building a franchise. … If you only have short-term goals, you cannot have sustained long-term success.”

So, the Dodgers protected Game 4 starter Urias and their now best player Seager, and used the next level of prospects to get Game 3 winner Rich Hill plus Josh Reddick. The combination had them in as good a position to win that first title ...